DETECTIVE COMICS #237: The Sleuth Who Went to Jail
Wait, what? To jail? Wasn’t he just in jail like three issues ago? How is he going to jail again?
It’s like the writer of this comic wrote that first jail story, then three weeks later suddenly came up with a different jail story that he liked way better and felt so stupid for even writing that first one and didn’t even care that John had just been to jail, he’s writing this new jail story and he is writing it right goddamn now.
While John cringes at a hobo stirring up a fire in a garbage can, he notices that a jewelry store across the street is being robbed. As he peers inside with his Martian Vision, he is suddenly knocked out with a blow to the back of the head.
When he awakes, he is in a prison courtyard, some sort of weird underworld prison where a group of thugs are jailing rival gangsters. I guess they want to try to reform them or something. THE SYSTEM DOESN’T WORK GUYS!
John wants to get close to the leader of the operation, so he decides to stir up trouble. A guard brings him bread and water, but John asks for a turkey dinner instead. The guard says no, so John walks through the wall to the nearest restaurant and returns.
With an entire turkey.
As the….strangely well-dressed-for-a-fake-prison guard tells the warden about John’s stunt, they allow him to continue consuming this whole turkey, and decide he should be placed on laundry duty.
In the laundry room, they leave John alone and he of course uses his amazing Martian mental powers to make all of the clothes wash themselves.
The guard returns and is once again freaked the fuck out.
Fine detective. To the quarry with you!
John again uses his brain energy beams to smash the rocks and his Martian lungs to blow them all into the back of the truck. Fine, the warden says, they will bring the chief in on this.
They throw John in a room and tell him shovel coal into a…oh no! A fiery furnace! John is losing his powers, but also says he needs to keep shoveling because if that guard shoots him the bullets won’t affect him and everyone will know his secret.
As the prison leader arrives, John summons his last bit of energy to use his Martian vision and bring down the water tower, spilling into the room and extinguishing the fire.
He knocks out the gangsters and gets many congratulations from the…captain?
I never know who his dang boss is.